When Mark Twain visited Palestine in 1867, the land was empty and desolate. (Old City of Jerusalem in the 19th century)

On his landmark visit to Israel 150 years ago, American literary giant Mark Twain witnessed what he did not then know was the start of the prophetic return of the Jewish people to the land. The renowned travel book that became the foundation for his success, Innocents Abroad, painted a picture of a holy land whose desolation would serve as the beginning point of prophecy brought to life. Continue a ler (Continue reading)→

LONDON – World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder said Monday at the WJC’s Executive Committee meeting in London that the primary goal of the international body in coming years must be to increase Jewish unity, as part of the overall efforts to ensure the security and identity of Jewish communities in the face of rising anti-Semitism. Continue a ler (Continue reading)→

Rabbi Marc D. Angel is Founder and Director of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, www.jewishideas.org. Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City, he is author and editor of 30 books, many dealing with aspects of Sephardic history and culture. Among his recent books are “Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality: The Inner Life of Jews of the Ottoman Empire;” (Jewish Lights, 2006); and “Maimonides, Spinoza and Us: Toward an Intellectually Vibrant Judaism,” (Jewish Lights, 2009), both of which won awards from the National Jewish Book Council. His most recent book is “Maimonides: Essential Teachings on Jewish Faith and Ethics,” Jewish Lights, 2012. This article originally appeared in Sephardic Horizons (sephardichorizons.org), volume 1, issue 3, spring 2011; and was reprinted in issue 12 of Conversations,the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, and again in issue 29.

In the early 1970s, shortly after I had begun my rabbinical service to Congregation Shearith Israel, the historic Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York City, I attended a shiur, a lecture, at Yeshiva University given by the recently elected Rishon leZion, Rabbi Ovadya Yosef. As a young Sephardic rabbi, I was eager to hear the words of this prominent and erudite Sephardic rabbinic leader. The message of that shiur made a great impression on me and has remained with me to this day. Continue a ler (Continue reading)→

The Jerusalem Post, September 6, 2017, published the following: In an astonishingly vitriolic attack on progressive Jews, Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem Shlomo Amar said that Reform Jews “deny more than Holocaust deniers….Today there was a hearing on the Kotel on the petition of the cursed evil people who do every iniquity in the world against the Torah – they even marry Jews and non-Jews,” said Amar…They don’t have Yom Kippur or Shabbat, but they want to pray [at the Western Wall]. But no one should think that they want to pray. They want to desecrate the holy. They are trying to deceive and say that extremist Haredim invented [prayer arrangements at the Western Wall]…It’s like Holocaust deniers, it’s the same thing. They shout, ‘Why are there Holocaust deniers in Iran?’ They deny more than Holocaust deniers.” Continue a ler (Continue reading)→

Watch: The site that was allegedly destroyed by Israeli aircraft

Syrian and Lebanese news outlets reported Thursday morning that Israel destroyed a research center for developing missiles and chemical weapons operated by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad near the city of Hama. Israel has yet to comment on the reports. Continue a ler (Continue reading)→

Proceed With Caution

There’s a lot of bad advice going around this time of year. Dangerous advice. The Internet is full of it. So is your synagogue. Maybe even your favorite rabbi.

Look, they mean well. But they’re often completely unaware of the hazards involved. Which makes their advice an even greater threat to your mental and spiritual health.

“Days of Judgment are upon us,” they tell you. “Rosh Hashanah. Yom Kippur. It’s time to take an account of all you’ve done wrong in the past year and resolve never to return to your wayward deeds.”

Absolutely true. Absolutely crucial. And equally dangerous.

SuchWithout serious precautions, this inventory-taking can be downright toxic. advice works wonders for the spiritually advanced. But for the rest of us, without serious precautions, this inventory-taking can be downright toxic. Here’s why:

Dwelling on the moral misdemeanors of your past and the brute instincts from which they emerged is guaranteed to lead to depression. Now get this, and get it straight and clear: There’s sin, there’s evil, there’s hell, and then there’s depression. At least hell gets you somewhere.

Contemplating how and why you chose to act out those urges, you will re-experience the thrill and pleasure you drew from them. Which just makes it all the more likely that you’ll do more of the same.

Worse yet: You might take this life-review to heart. Then you’ll say, “Boy, was I rotten! Boy, was I nasty! I guess I’m just a real rotten, nasty guy and always will be”

That last one is the real killer. Because it defeats your original purpose in engaging in this self-review in the first place. If you’re making this review, it’s because you already regret your past and want to leave it behind. You want the coming year to be a year of growth and blossoming of all your spiritual potential.

Just by starting that journey, you’re forgiven already. He’s a forgiving G‑d. All it takes is a moment of regret to be forgiven.

But you’re looking for more than forgiveness. The point of this review is not the past, not the present, but the future. You need to grow out of your past. You need to change. Inner change.

And here you’re sabotaging all of that. Because the key to inner change is to change who you think you are. But if you think you’re a louse, you will be a louse.

If you think you’re a louse, you will say, “Why would a great, perfect G‑d pay attention to the prayers of a louse like me? Why would He want my mitzvahs? Why would He want anything to do with me?”

“Serve G‑d with joy.”1 It’s not going to work otherwise.2 Yes, there was a time when people could handle a good portion of bitter herbs and still stay joyful. But, as the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson of righteous memory put it,Today, we just don’t have the strength to deal with bitterness. today, we just don’t have the strength to deal with bitterness. We need inspiration, motivation and celebration. Bitterness still has its place, but only once you’ve fully revved up the engine of joy.3

In short, your yearly inventory is likely to be not only counterproductive, but a plan for disaster. Unless…

Daniel Burka on Unsplash

Search and Rescue

Unless you know what you are looking for. And what you are looking for is definitely not your sins. You’ll find those—like you’ll find clots of hairy muck while clearing clogged pipes. But they’re not the object of your search. You’ll only find those so you can chuck them out—immediately.

You are looking for yourself. Your true self. And you can only find that by looking back there, taking a road trip though all the inner places where your true self was lost.

InCall it a cognitive reframing of your past self, so that you can move forward. the lingo of psychology, you’re doing a cognitive reframing of your past self, so that you can move forward.

“And you will search for G‑d, your G‑d, from there, and you will find Him, because you will seek Him with all your heart and all your soul.”4

That’s the first mention of teshuvah in the Torah. Teshuvah is too often translated as repentance. That’s wrong. Repentance means you’re bad and now you’ve resolved to be good. Teshuvah means returning. Returning to the true, pure self that never changes. Because it is a breath of G‑d who does not change.

Search back there, through the mud and the murk of your past. Search past the deeds and the words. Those are but symptoms. You don’t heal by treating symptoms.

Search back there, through the blood-boiled chambers of your heart, past the callous egotism that allowed those things, past the fool who allowed himself to believe he was G‑d and therefore could do whatever he pleased and trample over whoever got in the way, past the hard rock walls of a heart that just didn’t care.

Search there with all the faith of your heart and soul, saying, “Deep inside here, I know I will find a pure soul. I know that when I did those things, when I acted the way I did, that pure soul was screaming bloody murder. I heard its voice, but I didn’t listen. Instead, I heard the voice of a beast, and I let myself believe that was me.”

“But I am not a beast. I am not a louse. I am an innocent child. I am a spark of the divine. And I will find that pure soul there within that darkness and I will rescue it from there.”

Chris B on Unsplash

Faith In Yourself

Only once you have faith in yourself can you see yourself objectively. You can admit to your faults, because they are not you.

Only once you have faith in who you really are can you understand why these things don’t suit you. Like poor choices from a wild shopping spree, shoes that hurt your feet, pants that never fit, gaudy jewelry and cheap accessories, they just have to be chucked so you can move on in life.

Searching for yourself is a journey that takes far more faith than any pilgrimage. Just as you have faith in a G‑d you cannot see, so you must have faith in your own soul whose voice you cannot hear.

Because G‑d has faith in that soul. G‑d has faith in you. Faith you cannot fathom.

David, sweet singer of Israel, sang to G‑d: “On Your behalf, my heart says to me, ‘Seek my innermost!’ G‑d, I seek Your innermost.”5 For an entire month before Rosh Hashanah and until Hoshana Rabbah, we repeat those words twice a day in our prayers.

BecauseAt this time of year, the innermost of your heart is calling, saying, “Check me out. I am who you really are.” that’s what your heart is doing during those days. It’s beckoning to you, “Check me out. Check me out deeply. Beneath all the schmutz, I am dark but beautiful. I am who you really are, and can truly be.”

Search there, rescue yourself from there, and you will be that.

And you will be surprised. Because there you will find that G‑d Himself was always breathing within you.

MUNICH – World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder on Wednesday thanked the German government for its long-awaited tribute to the 11 Israeli sportsmen and German policeman murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the Olympic Village during the 1972 Munich games, and said: “Today we mark not just a tragedy, but a terrible wrong that took place here 45 years ago. Let me be clear from the start. This monument should not have taken 45 years to build.”Continue a ler (Continue reading)→

A new survey examining the religion of Americans shows a growth in the number of Jews of no religion, compared to findings of the PEW survey of American Jews from four years ago. It also shows that the numbers of Jews claiming to be Reform and Conservative are declining while the number of those who identify with no denomination is on the rise. Continue a ler (Continue reading)→

“And Avram moved his tent, and came to dwell at the terebinths of Mamre, which are in Chevron; and he built a mizbayach there to Hashem.” Genesis 13:18 (The Israel Bible™)

Jewish men outside the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. (Lerner Vadim / Shutterstock.com)

The small Jewish community in Hebron, comprising approximately 100 families, has been officially upgraded from its status as a neighborhood within the Palestinian Authority and will come under the municipal auspices of the state of Israel for the first time, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman announced on Tuesday. Continue a ler (Continue reading)→

“On behalf of the World Jewish Congress, I commend the US administration for its encouraging decision to prioritize the appointment of a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.

“America’s Jewish community is undoubtedly among the safest in the world, but the demonstrations of blatant anti-Semitism, bigotry and racism that we have seen of late make the importance of such an envoy ever clear.

“When Jews are targeted for being Jewish, it is a problem not just for the Jewish community, but for America as a whole. It is imperative that all US citizens work together to fight all forms of hatred when they rear their ugly heads.”

UNESCO condemned as “shameful and offensive” for continued campaign to erase Jewish history, declaring Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs an “endangered” Palestinian heritage site.

On Friday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted to designate Hebron’s Old City and the Cave of the Patriarchs “Palestinian World Heritage Sites.” Continue a ler (Continue reading)→

“And as for me, when I came from Paddan, Rachel died unto me in the land of Canaan in the way, when there was still some way to come unto Ephrath; and I buried her there in the way to Ephrath–the same is Beth-lehem.’” Genesis 48:7 (The Israel Bible™)

Gostar disto:

Brussels, June 27th, 2017 – The European Coalition for Israel has called upon the Chairman of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, Dr. Jacek Purchla, to do everything in his power to stop the Palestinian attempt to declare the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron an endangered Palestinian cultural heritage site, thus denying any Jewish links to this second most holy site in Judaism.

Gostar disto:

In this week’s Parasha, we read of the Israelites’ complaint of lack of water; of God’s instruction to Moses to speak to the rock; of Moses striking the rock to bring forth water; of God informing Moses that he would not be allowed to enter the Promised Land. Moses had erred; he and Aaron were told by God: “Because you did not believe in Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them” (Bemidbar 20:12).

Israel will find itself fighting on two fronts at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee annual assembly in Poland next week after Jordan put forward a motion to keep the Old City of Jerusalem on its list of endangered sites. Another motion will seek to have the Old City of Hebron – including the Tomb of the Patriarchs – added to the list and registered under the “State of Palestine.” Continue a ler (Continue reading)→

But for the past five years, despite broad internal consensus and consistent pressure, the American Jewish establishment has been unable to persuade Israel’s government to create an equitable space for non-Orthodox prayer at the Western Wall. Continue a ler (Continue reading)→

Minister Gilad Erdan appeals to UN Secretary-General Guterres to stop hostile conference scheduled to take place at the UN headquarters this month; writing to Guterres and telling him the groups participating are entirely dedicated to defaming and ‘delegitimizing Israel’ Erdan also reaches out to US Senator Marco Rubio, urging him to ‘continue to speak out against use of UN funds to promote the BDS campaign.’

BDS protest

Israel is gearing up to push back against a conference being hosted next week by the UN in the organization’s New York headquarters to mark what it describes as the “anniversary of the Israeli occupation.” Continue a ler (Continue reading)→